Boxing Is Dead

[Mikefields]

Boxing is dead

The New England Patriots vs the Indianapolis Colts.
If you love football , then this is as big as Ali Vs Frazier , Leonard vs Hagler or Mayweather vs Delahoya (The hype anyway). The Pats this year are just basically unstoppable , but then so are the Colts to an arguable lesser extent. Nevertheless , the two beasts are set and ready for war and it'll happen on sunday december 4th , not on pay per view , not on hbo but on stations that everybody has. Face it , even if you don't want cbs or nbc , you're probably gonna end up with em anyway.

THIS IS AWESOME! if you have even the most basic cable channels , you're still going to be able to watch your favorite sports: Football , Hockey , Soccer , F-1 , Nascar , Baseball , Basketball , Golf , hell , you'll even have a hard time avoiding Curling! Curling?! Well darn..
So you can follow the sports you like! as long as that sport is'nt Boxing. But Mike , is'nt Boxing a little more exciting than like...uh t.v. Golf? Or you know.....Curling?! Well apparently not!

-This is the life of a Football fan ; wake up on sunday turn on the tv at 11am and BANG , you're a happy man from the pre-game show to the end of the monday nighter. Then ... Well no that's ... That's pretty much it.

-Now this is the life of ME (Boxing fan) ; ok , next month it's Calzaghe vs Kessler.. MAN CAN'T WAIT!
Ok it's not on tsn.. Well i guess i'll just get a few of my friends to watch it here on pay per view so we
can all split the (probably 50 plus) dollars it's gonna cost!
One week later...Hmm well wadayaknow.. The fight is'nt listed on ppv.com.
Well! Time to uninvite my buddies one by one.
Hey , look at this! HBO afterdark.... uh....... Yeah Don't have that here.
So i'm stuck looking for a bar that plays it , who needs home comfort when you can go to a cramped up bar to spend a bunch of money watching the fight with 200 people who don't even know how the 10 point system works.

Boxing HAS lost a lot of fans over the years and YES part of it may be because of the state of the heavyweight division. It does'nt really bother me when people say "Boxing is dead , there are no more Leonards , Robinsons , Tysons , no fights worth watching anymore". If that's your opinion , that's fine , cause your stating an opinion , not a "I think i know Sh*t fact" like what i keep hearing on t.v. over and over :: Boxing is dying out because of the strenght of the UFC.
Everytime i hear that i feel like smashing something. Please! Cut the crap!!! Boxing ain't dying because of the UFC , The UFC is killing boxing as much as trees are killing our planet. The fact about Boxing dying out is they are making this sport impossible to follow! True fans are always scrambling trying to catch a fight here and there but in the end , if you want to be a true boxing fan and get minimum knowledge of whats going on , you have to spend hours on Boxing sites and forums , and this is a sport , you should be able to just lean back and enjoy... But , for me it's become like a second job.

The point is , the UFC is not killing Boxing , Boxing is killing Boxing.

[CFH]

As a fellow Canadian (which I assume you are since you mentioned TSN) I must agree that it is an absolute bitch to try a watch a fight as it happens. Most big fights are shown on TSN within a month of their occurance. The biggest problem I find, like you said, is the unavailibility of HBO and Showcase up here. The only time I've been able to find a bar showing a live fight was the PBF-ODH fight, which cost $15 just to walk through the door.
MMA is in no way responsible for the demise of boxing, I'll agree with you there as well. It merely filled a niche for the sports fan that boxing had long since alienated through a variety of means.

[No Contest]

Good points about the availability of boxing on free t.v. I actually forked out the extra bucks each month for Showtime and HBO solely for the boxing. It seems like these guys have all the fights. I cant wait for ESPN's boxing season to begin again, because "The Contender" isnt cutting it for me. The main problem I believe is the lack of advertising boxing can sell. Alot of Corps. dont want to be associated with anything controversial that could tarnish their rep. This is also why I think a federal commission and a overhaul of the whole game may be in order to get boxing back in the public's good favour.

[Taeth]

I seem to get TSN fine.

[eagle]

BOXING IS DEAD?
PBF v Hatton
Cotto v Mosely
Calzaghe v Kessler
Mormeck v Haye
Williams v Cintron

Boxing is on the comeback

[Body Puncher]

While you do make some good points I disagree with some parts. In actually boxing is more readily available on basic cable TV now then it has been in years, ESPN has boxing on several times a week be it original ESPN, or ESPN 2, FSN, sports net,MSG and Versus all have boxing on a regular basis. At one point in time or another during the day I can find boxing on one of those channels. Each one of the part of basic cable that I pay $29.99 a month for.

Add that to the several cards a month that either HBO or Showtime has available and that is quite a bit of boxing. The only place you can not find boxing that you can find Football, Baseball or NASCAR is NBC, CBS, ABC all those one can get with only an antenna so can not be considered a part of the basic cable line up. There is also the PPV events that are available everywhere but MMA also has PPV events on a regular basis.

I am sorry I have to disagree with you about boxing not being available, to me it sounds more like a problem with your cable provider and their line up. My brother lives in Atlanta and he also gets the same amount of boxing available just at different times. The only thing I can say bad about boxing on TV is it is not always live and at times the fights are a few days old but then again the other sports you mentioned are only around for a certain part of the year. If all the fights shown on the channels I mentioned were on live every time they would certainly out do all the other sports as far as TV time.

I also forgot the fact ESPN classic provides a boat load of great fights from the past that are almost impossible to get on disc without paying a handsome penny, by me every night at 8pm is classic fight time

[CFH]

While you do make some good points I disagree with some parts. In actually boxing is more ready on basic cable TV now then it has been in years, ESPN has boxing on several times a week be it original ESPN, or ESPN 2, FSN, sports net,MSG and Versus all have boxing on a regular basis. At one point in time or another during the day I can find boxing on one of those channels. Each one of the part of basic cable that I pay $29.99 a month for.

Add that to the several cards a month that either HBO or Showtime has available and that is quite a bit of boxing. The only place you can not find boxing that you can find Football, Baseball or NASCAR is NBC, CBS, ABC all those one can get with only an antenna so can not be considered a part of the basic cable line up. There is also the PPV events that are available everywhere but MMA also has PPV events on a regular basis.

I am sorry I have to disagree with you about boxing not being available, to me it sounds more like a problem with your cable provider and their line up. My brother lives in Atlanta and he also gets the same amount of boxing available just at different times. The only thing I can say bad about boxing on TV is it is not always live and at times the fights are a few days old but then again the other sports you mentioned are only around for a certain part of the year. If all the fights shown on the channels I mentioned were on live every time they would certainly out do all the other sports as far as TV time.

I also forgot the fact ESPN classic provides a boat load of great fights from the past that are almost impossible to get on disc without paying a handsome penny, by me every night at 8pm is classic fight time

I think his complaints about the availibility of boxing on TV here in Canada where we don't get HBO, Showtime, or ESPN.

[Mikefields]

hmm... i do apologize to everyone , i forgot to mention that i am a Canadian boxing fan so i dont have fsn espn showcase hbo and all that , sorry about that

[Body Puncher]

hmm... i do apologize to everyone , i forgot to mention that i am a Canadian boxing fan so i dont have fsn espn showcase hbo and all that , sorry about that

Well I apologize in return then, I did not realize that you guys could not get those channels up there, I thought all those were available throughout North America. I may be asking a stupid question but what about satellite?

Again I am not sure how it works there but where I live I can get all kinds of channels with satellite that are not available through cable? When I had satellite anyway.

[CFH]

hmm... i do apologize to everyone , i forgot to mention that i am a Canadian boxing fan so i dont have fsn espn showcase hbo and all that , sorry about that

Well the I apologize then I did not realize that you guys could not get those channels up there, I though all thoses were available throughout North America. I may be asking a stupid question but what about satalite

I've known some people who have Satalie, and I believe they are able to order PPV fights and they can also get ESPN Classic, but I think Showtime and HBO are pretty much impossible to get. You get get specialty channels that show HBO and Showtime programming, but they are pretty selective about what they show, IE little or no boxing. That's just what I've found in my very limited experience however.

[Wacko3205]

I haven't subscribed to the boxing is dead bullshit theory because pretty much every weekend I sit in front of my television & shell out a monthly fee for my cable connection or dishout $50 for PPV's or $1000's for front row seats at theatres.

Boxing is only dead if you let it be & follow the sheep.

This site that everyone comes onto to banter proves that boxing is very VERY much alive.

[Mikefields]

Thats right , even via satellite , we're very limited here , this is what we get

tsn - maybe 4 fights a week (out of those 4 , 3 are classics)
fight network - maybe 15 a week but man they are ALL no name fights
pay per view - - - - - - - -

man.. i think thats about it...ohhh we DO get espn classics but i think ive seen ali vs frazier 300 times already

[Fire]

hmm... i do apologize to everyone , i forgot to mention that i am a Canadian boxing fan so i dont have fsn espn showcase hbo and all that , sorry about that

being in canada is your problem, do u get any sports regularly on only one channel??

in america boxing is on everyday, it according to what cable plan you got though, but boxing is widely available..

the contender series, 24/7, countdown, espn classics, their is more realty type shows about boxing than almost anyother sport...

actually soccer isnt hardly ever on t.v. in america especially on regular ABC,NBC, FOX, CBS but that doesnt mean its dead...

maybe canadian tv boxing is dead, but actually dont canada have moliter, bute, pascal, selling out stadiums in canada??

boxing is doing better and has a brighter future now than it has in over a decade or two...

[Body Puncher]

I haven't subscribed to the boxing is dead bullshit theory because pretty much every weekend I sit in front of my television & shell out a monthly fee for my cable connection or dishout $50 for PPV's or $1000's for front row seats at theatres.

Boxing is only dead if you let it be & follow the sheep.

This site that everyone comes onto to banter proves that boxing is very VERY much alive.

Yeah I feel for you guys up there then, It must be some kind of govermental thing where the stations are not allowed to be broadcast past a certain area? Have you guys ever asked around the net? There has to be a site out there where you can get all the fights streamed live for a small monthly membership fee or something?

Have to be honest I am at a lost, I would be bumming if I was in that situation




















Sorry about that Wacko3205 I meant to quote another poster and did not even realize until today I quoted you by mistake

[Deanrw]

I remember back in the 80's, CBS Sports would have a boxing show practically every weekend. Quality Fights, Championship Boxing with Gil Clancy and Tim Ryan. They were great shows and when they stopped doing them, a small piece of me died.

If we could get Boxing back on one of the big three again, it would make a huge comeback.